The United States Department of Justice has revealed how a 37-year-old Nigerian national, Matthew Akande, orchestrated a sophisticated tax fraud scheme that targeted more than 1,000 Americans.
The scheme sought to steal over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds from the United States government over a period of five years.
Akande, who was based in Mexico before his arrest at London’s Heathrow Airport in October 2024, has since been sentenced to eight years in a federal prison after a court in Boston found him culpable of breaking into the computer networks of Massachusetts tax preparation firms and filing fraudulent returns using stolen taxpayer identities.
According to a statement published on the Justice Department’s website on Thursday, the scheme ran from June 2016 to June 2021, during which Akande and his accomplices systematically harvested the personal information of unsuspecting taxpayers through phishing attacks and computer intrusions targeting five tax preparation firms in Massachusetts.
The fraudsters deployed malicious software, including a remote access trojan known as Warzone RAT, to gain unauthorised entry into the firms’ systems.
The tool was delivered through carefully crafted phishing emails designed to appear as legitimate enquiries from prospective clients.
“To carry out the scheme, Akande caused fraudulent phishing emails to be sent to five Massachusetts tax preparation firms. The emails purported to be from prospective clients seeking the firms’ services but were, in truth, used to trick the firms into downloading a remote access trojan, malicious software, including malware known as Warzone RAT,” the statement read.
Once inside the firms’ networks, Akande extracted clients’ personally identifiable information and prior-year tax records, which were then used to file fraudulent returns directing refunds into accounts controlled by co-conspirators within the United States.
Upon the Internal Revenue Service processing and issuing the refunds, Akande directed his accomplices to withdraw the funds and wire portions to third parties in Mexico, while retaining their own cuts of the proceeds.
“In total, Akande and his co-conspirators filed more than 1,000 fraudulent tax returns seeking over $8.1 million in fraudulent tax refunds over approximately five years. They successfully obtained more than $1.3 million,” the department stated.
Akande was charged in 2022 on 32 counts bordering on wire fraud, money laundering, theft of government funds and aggravated identity theft.
He was subsequently extradited to the United States and arraigned before a federal court in Boston.
Delivering judgement, US District Judge Indira Talwani sentenced Akande to eight years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release.
He was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,393,230 to his victims.
Source : The Legal Observer
